New Wiki page!

[Trent R]

I don't know if I should post this, but I just created a new wiki page. It's a list of acronyms and they're meanings (because they're soooooo prevalent in the adventure genre).

But you should go check it out and improve it. My brain's fried (It's 8:30 for me and I've been up since 3. Couldn't sleep) and so it's fairly short.


~Trent

[Gilbert]

Well, our problem is that the wiki is currently lack of content and thus not very popular. We need people to add more stuff to it (the majority of the members are either too busy/lazy to do so) to make it functional. So, your work is really appreciated I think. It is a good start.

[Baron]

Well, you inspired me to set up an account over at the wiki and add an article.  I'd add more, but I'm....

too busy/lazy to do so

at the moment.  But if even half of all AGS members write an article, there'd be a lot of interesting reading.  If you're reading this post then I challenge you to stop wilfing, go to the AGS Wiki and write an article. 

[ThreeOhFour]

If we're going to make use of the Wiki (which I think is a good idea) perhaps we should make a list of Wiki articles that need writing?

[Babar]

I made an account also, and edited around some articles, but my main problem is that I'm not quite sure what goes there. I'll leave off little technical tricks (since I'm not exactly that knowledgeable about the inner workings of AGS Programming), but even excluding that, what goes here?

There are a number of games posted- some of them pretty obscure- and then many newer games (like those with AGS Awards) have no articles. But then again, why would you need an wiki for a game, when all the information about it is in the games page? Unless you are adding some new information, like outside reviews and such?

[monkey0506]

Basically the wiki is designed as a place for all information related to AGS in a format that the community can edit.

Regarding game pages, it would definitely be useful to be able to keep active links (i.e., if a game has a broken link and you have a copy of the game you could upload it to one of the AGS upload sites, and link it as a mirror).

Basically any information that can be provided relating to AGS would be appropriate for the wiki. One thing that comes to mind that I'm pretty sure isn't in the wiki, but could be useful could be a "List of things that haven't been inventory items (yet)". It could be updated from the corresponding thread, and if a game includes a listed item, it could be struck-through and a link to the game's page (the regular or wiki game page) added. Just an idea...

[Gilbert]

But then again, why would you need an wiki for a game, when all the information about it is in the games page? Unless you are adding some new information, like outside reviews and such?

Good question. If you put everything in the wiki, it will be more integrated (or, in case crisis like other sites going down you will have an alternative solution). But, on the other hand you can just put a link to the Games page in it.

Sometimes it's hard to decide whether some stuff shall be there or not.

Take this as an example, Monkey added the AGS manual, which is already included in the AGS distributions and is also online as part of the official AGS site. The problem is, the official CHM and online versions are maintained by CJ himself, which will be updated by himself whenever necessary. On the other hand, someone needs to maintain the wiki version manually, otherwise it will be outdated whenever the official versions are updated. Also, when updating the wiki version, the maintainer will need to know what actually are changed in the official versions, which can be real difficult.
Monkey worked hard in bringing everything in the manual to the wiki and had promised he will maintain the wiki version of the manual. I hope he really have the stamina to manage it.

I think my view on this is, basically everything can be in the wiki, but before making a page, think about it first, judge whether it's something that, say, requires continual maintainence and in such case, make sure there are people who are capable to update it frequently.

P.S. Well, Monkey posted before me. I'll post it directly anyway.

[RickJ]

I think my view on this is, basically everything can be in the wiki, but before making a page, think about it first, judge whether it's something that, say, requires continual  maintenance and in such case, make sure there are people who are capable to update it frequently.

I couldn't agree more wilt Gilbot about maintenance.   It is amazing how quickly information becomes outdated, especially redundant information.   Before writing an article please think deeply about this issue.  Write your article so that it will endure for all time and if that's not possible then try to segregate those items likely to be quickly dated into one section or at least identify them.   I often use the phrase "At the time of this writing..." to let some future reader know that
what I am describing may have  changed over time.   I haven't played around with the wiki enough to suggest any specifics but perhaps date sensitive material could be rendered in a different color, highlighted, or emphasized in some other manner.  If so we should have a  standard and consistent way of doing this.   Perhaps it would alos be good practice for each article to include date of first publication,  date of most recent change, and AGS version.

If we're going to make use of the Wiki (which I think is a good idea) perhaps we should make a list of Wiki articles that need writing?

This is not a bad idea actually.  The list could be in a sticky thread perhaps in the Technical Archive.  The first post could include a check list of best practices and other suggestions.

It also wouldn't be a bad idea if would be authors posted a thread with an abstract of the article they intend on publishing.  Others would be able to make suggestions or other inputs at the beginning and would be able to critique the article when it was finished.   I don't know - perhaps people will just ignore such threads? 

[Baron]

If we're going to make use of the Wiki (which I think is a good idea) perhaps we should make a list of Wiki articles that need writing?

This is not a bad idea actually.  The list could be in a sticky thread perhaps in the Technical Archive.  The first post could include a check list of best practices and other suggestions.
It also wouldn't be a bad idea if would be authors posted a thread with an abstract of the article they intend on publishing.  Others would be able to make suggestions or other inputs at the beginning and would be able to critique the article when it was finished.   I don't know - perhaps people will just ignore such threads? 

    The idea is good, but I think the thread could get pretty unwieldy pretty quickly.  The "List of Wiki Articles Needing Writing" thread would quickly become outdated, meaning a potential writer would have to read through the whole thread to get up to date, every time (to check for new information).  Either that, or a co-ordinator would have to spend good time keeping the first post up to date.  A more practical solution would be to put the list directly into the Wiki, so that anyone could edit it (add, subtract).  If the list were made with dead links (you know, the red fonts -not sure of terminology here), then all potential writers would have to do is click and write.
    I agree in theory that it would be good for an editorial review panel to look over articles before they're published, but due to a lack of manpower I believe this will have more negative results than positive.  1) The review process will certainly delay progress, 2) it will probably discourage more than a few writers from contributing, 3) It is somewhat against the spirit of a Wiki.  I realize at Wikipedia there is typically discussion about major changes to articles, so perhaps some criteria for "major change" or "article of importance" could be published: otherwise, just let the users try their best and edit what you don't agree with.
    As for articles to write, anything with a dead link is an obvious start.  Babar is right that the information regarding games can be found elsewhere, but this is true of all Wiki entries.  The idea here is to synthesize information so that it can be easily accessible to non-experts.  I would say stubs and articles on published AGS games should be fair game for anyone who has played them.  Histories of AGS community phenomena written by a protagonist would also be handy  -editorial summaries of some of the competitions to date, summaries of each AGS meet, a compilation of CJ's April Fools pranks, etc.  I would also say stubs for AGS people that you "know" couldn't go too far awry -they can't be any worse than some of the ones already there.  There is already a massive list of dead-linked Walkthroughs that should be addressed -much of this information is on the net so it need only be brought into Wiki format.  Other contributions could be left open-ended -publish what you know about "Politics in Adventure Games" (for example) with the expectation that someone else will (eventually) add to your work.

[Trent R]

My ideas, sorry if I ramble a bit:

1) Just as old articles are marked for revision by having at the top "This article was written for an older version of AGS" in a red box, perhaps we can have a blue box that says "This article is current with AGS 3.0.2" (such as for the manual). That way, if the article does get outdated, it will be easy to identify and update it.

2) I have recently enjoyed reading through the game theory discussions, but a lot of them are really muddled. Perhaps a summary could be written, but this would be a large project.

3) Along with the game design note, I'd like to see articles published on game design or even links to one on other sites. Ideas include Adventure Architect by Josh Roberts, Depressingly Common Adventure Game Design Flaws by Yahtzee, Why Your Game Is Broken by Vince Twelve, or any others. The Wiki should be the place for AGSers to publish those articles!

4) Can the main page of the Wiki include 'Recently Made Pages' automatically? If not, it may need to be a manual process, but by doing so it will help monitor the quality of the articles that get published.

5) Revamping the categories! They're great games and all, but does the Chzo Mythos and Ben Jordan series really need their own categories? They should just be under AGS games, then add a heading on each page that states that the game is part of a series and links to the others. This can be one of those fancy boxes that's at the bottom of most wikis.
[Edit2]: Just saw that SSH has his own category for Modules by him....


I think that's all I got for now... Perhaps I'll go study up on Wiki formatting and start doing some of the things I mentioned.
~Trent
[Edit]: Oops, fixed my bbcode.

[LUniqueDan]

I'm affraid that the real issues of The AGS wiki are actually :

1) Lack of visibilities. (I forgot the existence of that wiki long ago)

2) Lack of internal links/ #Redirect and other thingies. That make any research almost impossible unless you know very well what your looking for (so it's faster using the forum/help files).

3) Lack of informations (most of the articles will redirect you here anyway)

Anyway, I spend some hours this morning adding links and redirects, I hope it will works better, Wikis are cool when they are updated oftenly.

[edmundito]

One of the things about the wiki that I think it's pretty obscure is that it's hosted on a separate web address and there's not quick link to it, so anyone new or a regular is not going to know about it, or bother to go to it. I mean I love american girl scouts about as anyone else, but it's a pretty obscure community in-joke.

I'm suggest that ags site could use a more prominent navigation menu that links to the forum, games db, main site, and wiki that can be part of the header we see above, that way everyone has quick access to the important stuff.

One example is the google nav bar that you see across iGoogle, Gmail, Google Docs, Calendar, etc. it's pretty handy.

[AGA]

I wonder if the breadcrumbs on the forums can be used to hold links to pages external to the forums. Or if we could modify them and the main site to be have slightly better integrated navigation. Like say Adventure Gamers has.

[AGA]

4) Can the main page of the Wiki include 'Recently Made Pages' automatically? If not, it may need to be a manual process, but by doing so it will help monitor the quality of the articles that get published.

Added that to the top navbar on the wiki. It's not very easy to actually include other pages within pages if that's what you meant though.

[SSH]

I really think we should pitch together and buy agswiki.com or .org or something...

[Trent R]

AGA-You got what I meant perfectly. It's nice to have the Recent Changes, but a lot of those can be so significantly minor (such as fixing a period) it gets easily muddled--especially if people don't check minor edit and type a description.
However, it doesn't appear on the nav bar on the Main Page (only) for me. Working!

~Trent

[AGA]

I really think we should pitch together and buy agswiki.com or .org or something...

Domains cost almost nothing. I can get a shorter one if people are really bothered.

[Trent R]

I really think we should pitch together and buy agswiki.com or .org or something...

Domains cost almost nothing. I can get a shorter one if people are really bothered.

I don't think that even matters. americangirlscouts is a perfectly fine backronym for AGS, so it works. Having agswiki.com might be nice for those that don't know it exists, but if we linked it on the navbar, it wouldn't matter anyways.

Besides, adventuregamestudio.co.uk doesn't say much about what the mainsite would be.... (although there is adventuregamestudio.co.uk)

~Trent

[TerranRich]

We could always have agswiki.org point to the existing wiki URL.

[Trent R]

I was inspired by matt's recent post in General discussion and an old post by Akumayo to create a new wiki page.

Enjoy


~Trent